The piece of wreckage was found on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel, which separates Mozambique in eastern Africa and Madagascar, which is the same part of southern Indian Ocean in which the only confirmed piece of MH370 debris, a flaperon, was found.

Early photographic analysis of the object, which bears the words ‘NO STEP’ and could be from the plane’s horizontal stabiliser, suggests it may have come from the jet.

A piece of wreckage was found on Reunion island last July (Picture: Getty Images)

An aviation source told CNN that there is no record of any Boeing 777 missing other than MH370, which had 239 people on board when it disappeared on 8 March 2014.

Boeing engineers are examining the photos, but the company has not yet commented.

Last July, a single flaperon encrusted with barnacles washed up on the eastern shore of Reunion, east of Magascar. It was verified as part of the missing plane after more than a month of forensic analysis of a laboratory near Toulouse.